96 WILD ANIMALS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK. 



a bear, while a most respectful and dignified animal, has not un- 

 limited patience and is capable of resenting with fatal results any 

 undue familiarity. Only those who are familiar with them through- 

 out the season should be allowed to feed or take any liberties with 

 them. 



Grizzly Bear; Sil\t:rtip: Ursus horrihilis impeimtorf^ Mer- 

 riam. — During the summer of 1917 a few grizzly bears were re- 

 ported in the less frequented areas of the park, and a few are said 

 to have been killed around the edges each year. They are very shy 

 and few have learned to come to the hotel garliage piles. One visited 

 our camp at the Eeynolds Cabin, in the Upper Waterton Valley, one 

 night in August, but quickly left when he found the cabin occupied, 

 and the cook and guide were the only ones to get a glimpse of him. 

 In the spring of 1895 the}' were the commonest bears in the St. Mary 

 Lake region, and their great tracks were seen on the snow along the 

 trails every time we climbed the mountains. One day in May, 1895, 

 as Howell and I came down the mountain we saw one splendid silvery 

 gray fellow in a little park close to the edge of the thick timber. He 

 was evidently digging bulbs or hunting for mice or insects, but was 

 too far away for our short-range guns, and our shots only sent him 

 quickly into the woods. On June 3, as Hank Norris and I were 

 watching a drove of white goats on the side of Going-to-the-Sun 

 IMountain, we saw an old bear and small cub going down across the 

 glacier into the bottom of the valley. "\Ye quietly slid down the side 

 of the mountain and tried to head her off as she made for a piece of 

 timber below, but seeing or hearing us she turned up the opposite 

 slope and beat us to the top of the range by nearly a mile. We sat 

 on the snow and watched her and her cub climb the slope and dis- 

 appear over the crest of the ridge. The cub was about the size of a 

 raccoon and could not travel very fast, but the old bear kept only 

 a little ahead of him and anxiously coaxed him along as fast as pos- 

 sil)le, looking back and encouraging him to follow her at the best 

 speed he could make. The track made by the hind foot of this old 

 bear measured 6 inches across the ball of the foot and 11 inches long 

 where it made the full print in the snow. 



As we returned down the canyon between Going-to-the-Sun and 

 Goat Mountains we found where a still larger bear had followed the 



* At least two and probably three species of grizzly hears occur in the Glacier Park 

 region, as even the trappers have long recognized. Donald Stevenson, who lived for 

 many years on Swiftcurrent Creek and trapped and hunted in the region before it 

 was a park, tells me that some are nearly black in color, with white tips to the hairs 

 of the face and sides ; some are a rusty brown ; and others a golden yellow along the 

 sides. Sufficient skulls have not been obtained to determine satisfactorily the spe- 

 cies occupying the region, and there are still fewer skins to go with these skulls to show 

 which color pattern belongs to each of the different species. The habit notes are also 

 generalized under one heading, so that it is impossible to separate them or tell whether 

 the range and habits of the different forms vary as do the cranial and external char- 

 acters. 



